The three most common expressions in aviation are "Why is it
doing that?" "Where are we?" and "Oh Shucks".
Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.
Progress in airline flying: Now a flight attendant can get a
pilot pregnant.
Airspeed, altitude or brains: Two are always needed to
successfully complete the flight.
A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three
in a row is prevarication.
We have a perfect record in aviation: We never left one up there!
If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's
probably a helicopter - and unsafe.
Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for
the purpose of storing dead batteries.
Navy carrier pilots to Air Force pilots: Flaring is like
squatting to pee.
Air Force Pilots to Navy Pukes: If you knew how to flare properly
you wouldn't need a a cable plus backup cables plus
save-your-ass-nets every time you attempted to land.
Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight
to a person on the ground incapable of understanding it.
When a flight is proceeding incredibly well something was
forgotten. - Robert Livingston, "Flying The Aeronca"
Never fly the 'A' model of anything. - Ed Thompson When a prang
seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object
in the vicinity, as slowly and gently as possible. - Advice
given to RAF pilots during W.W.II.
The Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely
kill you. - Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot
A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane
to its maximum. - Jon McBride astronaut
If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into
the crash as possible. - Bob Hoover
If an airplane is still in one piece, don't cheat on it; Ride the
bastard down. - Ernest K.Gann, advice from the 'old pelican'
Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For
I am 80,000 Feet and Climbing. - Sign over the entrance to the
SR-71 operating location on Kadena
You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3. - Paul
F.Crickmore
There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime. -
Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970. (It
was still there in1972.)
What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and
pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up,
the pilot dies.
If something hasn't broken on your helicopter it's about to.